As an independent software vendor (ISV), AFS Technologies used to hand off the hardware portion of a sale, allowing customers to source for themselves the equipment they would use with AFS software, which ranges from enterprise resource planning to warehouse management systems to business intelligence. But when AFS decided that offloading the hardware decisions wasn’t always the best solution, it took control of the entire process. At that time, nearly a decade ago, the ISV selected Psion to support its software sales. Today AFS is a platinum level reseller with Psion and was honored in 2011 as Psion Total Solution Partner of the Year.

and services for AFS, says Psion’s broad line card fits with AFS’s philosophy of offering a range of solutions that fit a variety of business models, allowing AFS to routinely source hardware from one vendor rather than maintain relationships with multiple manufacturers. “For example, our customers warehouse a broad line of products across multiple temperature ranges plus have trucks making deliveries,” explains Nezvadovitz. “By using Psion hardware, we can offer a single hardware solution to meet our customers’ mobile terminal needs in refrigerated and deep freezer environments.” AFS uses the Psion EP10 terminal for driver delivery, while the vendor’s freezer-rated 7530 G2 handheld and 8525 G2 forkliftmounted computer can handle operating temps down to -22˚ F. Nezvadovitz also praised the Psion Omnii XT15 handheld, which offers AFS customers the capability to swap damaged keyboards or scanners on their own and quickly return a unit to production. “That feature alone saves our customers in up-front costs since they don’t need to budget as much for full spares while a unit is returned to depot for service,” he adds.

Overall, Nezvadovitz says Psion plays a role in nearly every deployment that AFS completes and contributes to the success of AFS in a way that differentiates them from other vendor partners. “When asked, I refer to Psion as a boutique vendor,” he says. “Think of the local boutique store where you know the entire staff and they know you as well. When I deal with Psion, we make one or two calls, and within an hour (usually minutes) I have an answer — usually ‘absolutely.’ Try that at some megacorporation, and you will wait a week before you hear back.” In addition to the open communication with Psion, Nezvadovitz credits the vendor with helping AFS enjoy a bigger footprint via support from its team of field engineers and account managers. “No matter where the opportunity is, I can provide a ZIP code, and they can provide AFS with local representation for the demonstration of the Psion equipment and complete hardware installation services,” he explains. “That is invaluable to us and our growth goals.”

For AFS Technologies, which provides its food-and-beverage
distribution customers with a range of business automation
solutions, convergence in the technology industry has opened
the door to a new consultative sales approach. To take full advantage
of the opportunity tied to convergence and earn a competitive edge in the
marketplace, AFS acquired and customized a full suite of vertically specialized
and complementary technology solutions. Then, AFS capped off its portfolio
with a business intelligence tool that helps its customers identify potential
internal trends and efficiencies that can offer
them a competitive advantage.

As an ISV that opened its doors almost 30 years ago,
AFS has seen a lot of change in the food-and-beverage
industry, says Abe Nezvadovitz, VP of strategic alliances
and services for AFS. As part of that evolution, AFS has
watched the needs and wants of its distributor customers
grow. "Technology has changed so much with the
addition of wireless, miniaturization of handhelds, and
more," says Nezvadovitz. "Improvements in technology
have allowed us to make more solutions available to our
customers and enable them in entirely new ways."

Acquisitions Fuel Continued Momentum In Vertical
To keep its customers on the leading edge of technology,
AFS needed a plan for tackling adjacent technologies. The ISV's roots are in providing enterprise resource planning
(ERP) tools for food-and-beverage distributors, solutions
that included basic financials, accounting, inventory
control, and invoicing. But when AFS chose, many years
ago, to focus in on that vertical, it understood it would
need to serve more of its clients' needs. "We had many
sophisticated customers, and as technology started to
offer more functionality, we knew those customers
would demand more services, and we needed to be
ready to tackle those demands," says Nezvadovitz.

The first addition to the AFS linecard was a warehouse
management system (WMS), which can be a complicated
product to tackle in food and beverage given the different
methods of billing and other issues. For example,
many food warehouses bill by the pound, not the case,
which is not addressed in many WMS products. Additionally,
food and beverage distribution are heavily regulated
and demand the capture of layers of regulatory information
other WMS tools may not be calibrated to handle.
"It used to be OK for food distributors to just keep track
of who they bought product from. Today, you need to
be able to track from the initial buy through all sales,
for instances such as recalls of tainted food," explains
Nezvadovitz.

After developing its WMS solution in-house, AFS started
exploring other ways to expand its line card. Rather
than build out new software products, the ISV chose to
invest in acquisitions. "Our target growth curve drove
that decision," explains Nezvadovitz. "The benefit of the
acquisition process is a sharp growth curve." To further
guarantee success, AFS targeted vertical-specific ISVs, only
considering those they considered best-of-class. "The true
advantage of this approach was that we not only acquired
the intellectual property of those businesses, but also their
human resources, which would have taken us the longest
time to build out." Among those solutions brought into
the AFS portfolio via acquisition was a laptop order-entry
solution for sales forces. This acquisition also included
the acquired company's database of products that, once
integrated with AFS's other products, provides real-time
access to a distributor's entire product line via laptop.
Next, AFS layered on trade-promotion management and
deal rebates through another acquisition. That allowed
it to offer a manufacturer's rebate service to customers
with neither the time nor expertise to track the potential
sales, rebates, and other money-saving offers from food
manufacturers. "It was economically impractical, so many
of our customers didn't do it, which meant they were
leaving money on the table. Plus, sometimes those pennies
off a product can make or break a sale," explained
Nezvadovitz. "We make it practical and share it across
the broader base of our customers so they can take
advantage of the economies of scale." Lastly, AFS went
on the hunt for a business intelligence tool that took all
the data harvested across its newly expanded product line
and created insight on which businesses could build new
efficiencies and profitability.

Acquisitions Along Vertical Lines
Fuel Accelerated Growth Three Ways
Nezvadovitz cautions that a solutions provider or ISV
that chooses acquisitions to fuel fast growth will face
some challenges. Perhaps most important is selecting
businesses that are already flourishing and healthy.
While targeting successful businesses certainly raises the
price, most are willing to negotiate as long as there is an
advantage to them as well. "Without the acquisition, they
struggle with scalability because they were pigeonholed,
they have one niche. Now, as part of our portfolio,
they can expand their potential base to include all of
our other solutions, so the acquisition accelerates their
growth, too. It's a win-win synergy."

For that interactive synergy to work, however, meant
pulling in the acquired human resources, then recognizing
and respecting their
expertise. "We consider the
personnel we brought over
with these companies — all
deeply experienced in not
only the vertical but their
individual technologies —
to be as valuable, if not
more so, than the products,"
explains Nezvadovitz. "We
brought them over as teams
with their software, because
you can put the best players
together into a dream team, but they may not be as good
together as they were individually because they all have
their own best practices. We didn't want to change that."
AFS has trained its sales force to identify potential sales
of adjacent products, and once an opportunity has been
sniffed out, the initial salesperson brings in experts from
whatever product line seems the best fit. Nezvadovitz
says that consultative approach to sales was a different
approach for AFS, but came fairly naturally as each sales
team got comfortable with the full AFS portfolio.

Overall, the acquisitions delivered to AFS three key
advantages: new products that were deeply aligned with
the food-and-beverage vertical, experienced sales and
support staff, and each acquired company's customer
base. That trifecta has fueled amazing growth for AFS; the
business has grown from one location in one state to a
presence in nine states, all over the last eight years. "We
grew our own sales both through new potential customers
we could approach with our expanded portfolio and the
existing customers of those other companies who now
had a trusted source for complementary technologies,"
says Nezvadovitz. The integrated suite of solutions also
has led to a secondary opportunity as customers strive to
push their competitive edge forward with more efficient
processes using AFS's new business intelligence (BI) tool.

Take Vertical-Specific Big Data
And Create Business Intelligence
AFS's latest acquisition and marketplace differentiator
allows it to turn the treasure trove of information
housed in the automation solutions it offers into relevant
and usable information. "All the information they need
is right there if you look for it through the right lens,"
says Nezvadovitz. "We offer our customers the right tool
to focus in on the data in our various systems and turn
it into significant information they can use to evaluate
what they are doing right and wrong and what trends are
within their very own walls."

AFS offers BI tools that work with each of its solutions,
so it can offer customers a
way to leverage the data
from ERP solutions to WMS
solutions and beyond.
Nezvadovitz uses the
example of a large deli-style
beef company with which
AFS works. Not surprisingly,
corned beef sales skyrocket
around St. Patrick's Day
but the business needs to
know more than that. With
AFS business intelligence
tools the customer can look at analytics that help it plan
the timing for ordering ingredients, ramping up production,
hiring extra personnel, and shipping more volume. Those
decisions are no longer educated guesses, which can cost
a company thousands if off just a fraction. Rather, the BI
pulled from the customer's suite of AFS solutions shows
exactly when and where to shift gears for that holiday
push. "BI is so far-reaching within an organization, it is
a great value for us to offer because there is almost no
place it doesn't have an impact on our customers," says
Nezvadovitz. Since investing in acquisitions to take its
vertical focus to the extreme and offer a one-stop-shop
for its food-and-beverage distribution customers, AFS has
enjoyed a steepened growth curve and an enviable level
of customer retention. "We're expanding as our customers
are doing the same, and that empowers stable, sticky
relationships," says Nezvadovitz. "We have customers that
have been with us for 20+ years because we continue to
evolve and offer whatever they look for. And sometimes,
we are the ones pushing them forward and helping
them stay relevant, with solutions such as mobility and
e-commerce. We help enable them to innovate and stay
competitive."